Saturday night after work I met up with some friends for a bachelor-party-o-rama.
Long story short, I was hanging with my friend Nick strolling around this outdoor patio of a bar. He was stopped by some random girl, or maybe not so random, who apparently knew him. Somehow she thought he was a soccer player or that she went to school in Liverpool.
The details are fuzzy.
Should I mention Nick was wearing an Everton jersey? And instead of making usual small talk he wanted to discuss the Joleon Lescott scenario with this girl.
Needless to say, it wasn't a long conversation and he's got a girlfriend anyway.
The funny thing was at least three or four times during the course of the night Nick mentioned how upset he was about the Lescott-to-Man City dalliance. As long as I've known him Nick's been a rabid sports fan, but never to this extent.
So I can only imagine how he felt Sunday morning waking up and looking at -- Burnley 1, Everton 0. Not even sticking in a stalk of celery helps that result go down.
So anyway, let's talk about Everton, why not?
We can get into Tottenham and Arsenal later on.
Losing to Arsenal 6-1 is bad enough, but at least it can be justified since the Gunners have the capacity to pull that kind of sublime display against anybody, regardless of which foreign beer company's ad is splashed across the front of the team's shirt. (Chang, Carling ... Carlsburg? Liverpool, I'd be worried.)
Losing to Burnley? Less justifiable. You'd figure Burnley would be in for a letdown only a few days removed from its shock 1-0 win over Manchester United in the midweek. Any way you want to slice this one, it's a turd you can't polish up.
Everton, you're the 2009 MLS All-Star Game Champions, you have a standard to uphold!
It's sufficiently clear at this point that David Moyes botched the Lescott scenario, even if they came to a resolution Sunday night for the GDP of a small Asian country.
Look I like Everton more than most clubs. It's the People's Club, right?
That said, Goodison Park isn't exactly Camp Nou. Lionel Messi or Kaka can spurn the Man City megabucks due to their respective situations at the biggest clubs in the world.
And in that regard, can you really blame Lescott for wanting to get paid? The Premier League, perhaps more than any sports league in the entire world, is drive by the C.R.E.A.M. philosophy. Once Everton lost 6-1 to Arsenal and Man City won on the opening weekend, the situation should have been over. Yet it it lingered and cast a real lousy shadow over the Toffees season. (Yes, it's only two games into the year and Everton will certainly recover, but it's a bad seed to have been planted in the backs Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta's minds.)
More than all this, Moyes seemed to have lost the big picture in regard to Lescott. Yes, as Everton you want to purport yourself as a "big club", but it's simply not the reality of the situation. The Toffees were great last season, and it took every drop of guts and guile to coax fifth place from a team that was ravaged by injuries. In light of what happened over the summer, especially at Manchester City, how did Everton decrease the gap between itself and the "Big Four"?
It didn't, and more importantly couldn't.
Herein lies my biggest beef with the English game. It's a self-perpetuating problem, like the drunk who drinks because he's unhappy he's a drunk.
In the Premier League you need to spend money to make money, and to really make that sweet, sweet money cake, you need to crack the Top Four and make the Champions League. Yet if you overspend and fail, you're setting the club up for financial ruin or possibly the abyss of relegation. There isn't a safety net.
So you have a club like Everton that seems to do things the "right way." Yet the right way doesn't and can't compete with billions upon untold billions of Arabian oil bucks.
It's sad to say, but last year's fifth place finish was an end to a means for Everton, a ceiling.
For Moyes to enter the 2009-10 season thinking a repeat of 2008-09 was possible is be proven to be foolish. In fact, selling off Lescott is the best decision the club can make in the big picture, as painful as it might be to sell of the uber-defender with head scars only a professional wrestler could appreciate.
Look at it this way, Everton bought Lescott for around $5 million before the 2006-07 season. It's gotten 114 appearances and 13 goals -- many important -- from him. Manchester City is offering perhaps five times as much as Everton paid for him. It's simple business, make the deal.
And again, to begrudge Lescott for wanting to ride off with sacks in a race car with bags marked with the British equivalent of "$$$" is petty. To be sentimental and believe there is a whiff of loyalty or sentimentality or that it can trump business is sad but true reality of the situation. Players are loyal to the names signing their checks, not the crest on their chests, regardless of post goal kisses that say otherwise.
What will City's money buy? Clearly not a player that will instantly transform Everton into a top four team -- there's only a handful of those players anyway and they're all in Spain. For the short term, Everton can save that money for a rainy day. In the long term it ought to consider reinvesting it into the club and trying to unearth the next Wayne Rooney through its ranks.
Like in Major League Baseball, where the "have-nots" have found a way to compete against the mega-payroll teams like the Red Sox and Yankees is through smarter scouting and developing their own young talent that they can keep before free agency for at least five or six years.
Football clubs around the world need to realize the way to health as a long-term sporting entity is building from the ground up.
At least, it's being reported that late Sunday, the two sides finally made a deal.
In closing, Everton's club crest reads "Nil Satis Nisi Optimum", meaning "Nothing but the best is good enough".
In 2009, that simply isn't the reality anymore.
Hier Kommt Jozy:
To borrow a quote from 'The Wire', "He fierce."
Jozy Altidore was about three or so of the King's inches away from the perfect debut for Hull City. Still, fans of the Mustard Tigers can take heed that the 19-year-old is the talented kid with upside that might allow them to stick around the Premiership another season.
Altidore's first touch really was a thing of legend, basically falling down and flicking the ball over his head just on the edge of the penalty box, allowing Kamel Ghilas to run onto it and score the game winner vs. Bolton.
Later, Altidore should have probably scored when he collected a long diagonal ball from Geovanni and chipped Jussi Jaaskelainen.
Usually I like to take the Larry David approach to most things, as in CYE, but the sky truly does seem to be the limit for Altidore. Over the summer I worried Altidore wasn't strong enough, but he looked like an ox on Saturday. (And any other worries, when he was stuck in limbo at Villareal, seem to be quashed.)
Hope Bob Bradley wasn't too busy unwinding Saturday with a glass of wine and Brian Ching "holding the ball up" highlights.
Rising:
* North London -- Arsenal and Spurs. Everything is super-amazing in North London these days. Do you need me to tell you that?
When Abou Diaby is scoring twice in two minutes, you know it's good to be a Gunner. (The first set up on a beautiful run-and-pass by Eduardo.)
And Spurs? Thank Carlton Cole for a horrific back pass, but it was certainly a deserved win by Tottenham.
* Wayne Rooney -- And not just because of the shoulder hairs creeping out the neckline of his jersey in HD!
For Manchester United to have any realistic shot at the top spot, Rooney Tunes needs to be a superstar, who more specifically scores goals. Throughout most of United's first three games Rooney collected a lot of passes at the top of the penalty area and looked to lay it off to a teammate, well, specifically a teammate who now calls Estadio Bernabeau home.
Rooney starter the scoring against Wigan with a nifty header in the second half, which the floodgates in the eventual 5-0 win where both Dmitar Berbatov! and Michael Owen!! each scored.
In short, Rooney needs to be an alpha dog this season, even if that dog is a squat little bulldog.
One other Rooney note, via his alleged Twitter. And not it's not that he's able to use a computer. His bio reads: "I'm Wayne Rooney! Footballer, Husband,"
Fantastic.
Falling:
* Wigan Athletic -- There's a very thin line between stupid and clever and Wigan.
* Bolton -- Let the Gary Megson watch begin, for all three people that care about such matters.
Television Zone:
* Week Two wasn't as kind to ESPN. The match from Wigan clearly wasn't on the same level of HD as the previous week from Stamford Bridge. My guess, the big stadiums -- Old Trafford, the Emirates, etc. -- probably already have HD cameras from the Champions League, but stadiums on the fringe like the JJBDW probably don't. This week the ESPN2 HD feed was a tinge better than the FSC normal feed. Not a big deal.
A bigger deal? The feed cutting out consistently for the first ten or so minutes.
Georgie Bingham did use the word, "soc-ball" when going to break. I only bring up this slip-up for the reason if ESPN is carrying the Premier League and using British talent, then you have to expect they'll call it football, not soccer. I'd figure anyone watching knows what's what. It does bear watching down the road.
Overall the best thing about the television scenario is that FSC and the Ghost of Setanta are listing which other channels the weekends matches are airing on in the States. A little cooperation never killed anyone.
Wonder what kind of rating today's Liverpool/Aston Villa match gets at 3 p.m. on ESPN2. For soccer's sake I hope it beats the usual cheerleading competition/World Series of Poker reruns.
Fantasy Team O' the Week:
* With one game remaining, two teams tied on 59 points -- Colin Sebastian's Hargreaves' Hair and Ben Kopsa's Olympique Mayonnais. Each had Wayne Rooney as a captain for 26 points.
Miscellany:
* Titus Bramble must have secretly killed somebody. He actually played pretty good Saturday against Manchester United, even diving to block a point-blank shot by Darren Fletcher.
Of course, he'll never shake his calamity reputation in England, unless by some stroke of fate he kicked the winning-penalty in next year's World Cup Final ... and even then, he'd still be a punchline.
* Clint Dempsey was a straight-up forward for Fulham vs. Chelsea. It'll probably stay that way with Andy Johnson out injured. Wonder if it open the door one last time for Eddie Johnson to do something at Craven Cottage.
* As for Chelsea? Simply dominated Fulham without having to break a sweat.
* If I had a bunch of money laying around, I'd consider lodging a bid at West Ham United. Great history, great/loyal fans and a decent enough stadium inside the English capital. You could do worse.
* Note to FSC, I know there's a relationship with DirecTV, but about eight commercials of LL Cool J yelling, "Philip Rivers" is enough for one weekend.
* Intrigued to see if Aston Villa is going to go to Anfield and show some guts this afternoon. I've said this a couple times, but this team is teetering more than we think. Losing Gareth Barry as a player hurts, but he can be replaced. The leadership void on and off the field left by him and the retired Martin Laursen? These are things that must be considered. I don't see Villa having too much fun any more.
One other thing:
* Not sure if this will be a recurring item or too Peter King-y, but definitely go see "Inglourious Basterds." Yeah, it's long and dense. And yeah, there's a King James Bible amount of on-screen reading. Whatever. It's a movie you only need to see once. It's hard to imagine a more engrossing 220 minutes.
I left the theater on the fence, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. Yeah, it was full of dialogue and would have been more suited for a August 1969 release than an August 2009 release. Insignificant, Quentin Tarantino's got it.
Two things to consider: 1) Christoph Walz is, in fact, the balls in the movie. (That's a bingo!) 2) any time a film uses a snuff box, I'm sold.
Enjoy Anfield this afternoon.
And I'll have a glass of milk, please.
Long story short, I was hanging with my friend Nick strolling around this outdoor patio of a bar. He was stopped by some random girl, or maybe not so random, who apparently knew him. Somehow she thought he was a soccer player or that she went to school in Liverpool.
The details are fuzzy.
Should I mention Nick was wearing an Everton jersey? And instead of making usual small talk he wanted to discuss the Joleon Lescott scenario with this girl.
Needless to say, it wasn't a long conversation and he's got a girlfriend anyway.
The funny thing was at least three or four times during the course of the night Nick mentioned how upset he was about the Lescott-to-Man City dalliance. As long as I've known him Nick's been a rabid sports fan, but never to this extent.
So I can only imagine how he felt Sunday morning waking up and looking at -- Burnley 1, Everton 0. Not even sticking in a stalk of celery helps that result go down.
So anyway, let's talk about Everton, why not?
We can get into Tottenham and Arsenal later on.
Losing to Arsenal 6-1 is bad enough, but at least it can be justified since the Gunners have the capacity to pull that kind of sublime display against anybody, regardless of which foreign beer company's ad is splashed across the front of the team's shirt. (Chang, Carling ... Carlsburg? Liverpool, I'd be worried.)
Losing to Burnley? Less justifiable. You'd figure Burnley would be in for a letdown only a few days removed from its shock 1-0 win over Manchester United in the midweek. Any way you want to slice this one, it's a turd you can't polish up.
Everton, you're the 2009 MLS All-Star Game Champions, you have a standard to uphold!
It's sufficiently clear at this point that David Moyes botched the Lescott scenario, even if they came to a resolution Sunday night for the GDP of a small Asian country.
Look I like Everton more than most clubs. It's the People's Club, right?
That said, Goodison Park isn't exactly Camp Nou. Lionel Messi or Kaka can spurn the Man City megabucks due to their respective situations at the biggest clubs in the world.
And in that regard, can you really blame Lescott for wanting to get paid? The Premier League, perhaps more than any sports league in the entire world, is drive by the C.R.E.A.M. philosophy. Once Everton lost 6-1 to Arsenal and Man City won on the opening weekend, the situation should have been over. Yet it it lingered and cast a real lousy shadow over the Toffees season. (Yes, it's only two games into the year and Everton will certainly recover, but it's a bad seed to have been planted in the backs Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta's minds.)
More than all this, Moyes seemed to have lost the big picture in regard to Lescott. Yes, as Everton you want to purport yourself as a "big club", but it's simply not the reality of the situation. The Toffees were great last season, and it took every drop of guts and guile to coax fifth place from a team that was ravaged by injuries. In light of what happened over the summer, especially at Manchester City, how did Everton decrease the gap between itself and the "Big Four"?
It didn't, and more importantly couldn't.
Herein lies my biggest beef with the English game. It's a self-perpetuating problem, like the drunk who drinks because he's unhappy he's a drunk.
In the Premier League you need to spend money to make money, and to really make that sweet, sweet money cake, you need to crack the Top Four and make the Champions League. Yet if you overspend and fail, you're setting the club up for financial ruin or possibly the abyss of relegation. There isn't a safety net.
So you have a club like Everton that seems to do things the "right way." Yet the right way doesn't and can't compete with billions upon untold billions of Arabian oil bucks.
It's sad to say, but last year's fifth place finish was an end to a means for Everton, a ceiling.
For Moyes to enter the 2009-10 season thinking a repeat of 2008-09 was possible is be proven to be foolish. In fact, selling off Lescott is the best decision the club can make in the big picture, as painful as it might be to sell of the uber-defender with head scars only a professional wrestler could appreciate.
Look at it this way, Everton bought Lescott for around $5 million before the 2006-07 season. It's gotten 114 appearances and 13 goals -- many important -- from him. Manchester City is offering perhaps five times as much as Everton paid for him. It's simple business, make the deal.
And again, to begrudge Lescott for wanting to ride off with sacks in a race car with bags marked with the British equivalent of "$$$" is petty. To be sentimental and believe there is a whiff of loyalty or sentimentality or that it can trump business is sad but true reality of the situation. Players are loyal to the names signing their checks, not the crest on their chests, regardless of post goal kisses that say otherwise.
What will City's money buy? Clearly not a player that will instantly transform Everton into a top four team -- there's only a handful of those players anyway and they're all in Spain. For the short term, Everton can save that money for a rainy day. In the long term it ought to consider reinvesting it into the club and trying to unearth the next Wayne Rooney through its ranks.
Like in Major League Baseball, where the "have-nots" have found a way to compete against the mega-payroll teams like the Red Sox and Yankees is through smarter scouting and developing their own young talent that they can keep before free agency for at least five or six years.
Football clubs around the world need to realize the way to health as a long-term sporting entity is building from the ground up.
At least, it's being reported that late Sunday, the two sides finally made a deal.
In closing, Everton's club crest reads "Nil Satis Nisi Optimum", meaning "Nothing but the best is good enough".
In 2009, that simply isn't the reality anymore.
Hier Kommt Jozy:
To borrow a quote from 'The Wire', "He fierce."
Jozy Altidore was about three or so of the King's inches away from the perfect debut for Hull City. Still, fans of the Mustard Tigers can take heed that the 19-year-old is the talented kid with upside that might allow them to stick around the Premiership another season.
Altidore's first touch really was a thing of legend, basically falling down and flicking the ball over his head just on the edge of the penalty box, allowing Kamel Ghilas to run onto it and score the game winner vs. Bolton.
Later, Altidore should have probably scored when he collected a long diagonal ball from Geovanni and chipped Jussi Jaaskelainen.
Usually I like to take the Larry David approach to most things, as in CYE, but the sky truly does seem to be the limit for Altidore. Over the summer I worried Altidore wasn't strong enough, but he looked like an ox on Saturday. (And any other worries, when he was stuck in limbo at Villareal, seem to be quashed.)
Hope Bob Bradley wasn't too busy unwinding Saturday with a glass of wine and Brian Ching "holding the ball up" highlights.
Rising:
* North London -- Arsenal and Spurs. Everything is super-amazing in North London these days. Do you need me to tell you that?
When Abou Diaby is scoring twice in two minutes, you know it's good to be a Gunner. (The first set up on a beautiful run-and-pass by Eduardo.)
And Spurs? Thank Carlton Cole for a horrific back pass, but it was certainly a deserved win by Tottenham.
* Wayne Rooney -- And not just because of the shoulder hairs creeping out the neckline of his jersey in HD!
For Manchester United to have any realistic shot at the top spot, Rooney Tunes needs to be a superstar, who more specifically scores goals. Throughout most of United's first three games Rooney collected a lot of passes at the top of the penalty area and looked to lay it off to a teammate, well, specifically a teammate who now calls Estadio Bernabeau home.
Rooney starter the scoring against Wigan with a nifty header in the second half, which the floodgates in the eventual 5-0 win where both Dmitar Berbatov! and Michael Owen!! each scored.
In short, Rooney needs to be an alpha dog this season, even if that dog is a squat little bulldog.
One other Rooney note, via his alleged Twitter. And not it's not that he's able to use a computer. His bio reads: "I'm Wayne Rooney! Footballer, Husband,"
Fantastic.
Falling:
* Wigan Athletic -- There's a very thin line between stupid and clever and Wigan.
* Bolton -- Let the Gary Megson watch begin, for all three people that care about such matters.
Television Zone:
* Week Two wasn't as kind to ESPN. The match from Wigan clearly wasn't on the same level of HD as the previous week from Stamford Bridge. My guess, the big stadiums -- Old Trafford, the Emirates, etc. -- probably already have HD cameras from the Champions League, but stadiums on the fringe like the JJBDW probably don't. This week the ESPN2 HD feed was a tinge better than the FSC normal feed. Not a big deal.
A bigger deal? The feed cutting out consistently for the first ten or so minutes.
Georgie Bingham did use the word, "soc-ball" when going to break. I only bring up this slip-up for the reason if ESPN is carrying the Premier League and using British talent, then you have to expect they'll call it football, not soccer. I'd figure anyone watching knows what's what. It does bear watching down the road.
Overall the best thing about the television scenario is that FSC and the Ghost of Setanta are listing which other channels the weekends matches are airing on in the States. A little cooperation never killed anyone.
Wonder what kind of rating today's Liverpool/Aston Villa match gets at 3 p.m. on ESPN2. For soccer's sake I hope it beats the usual cheerleading competition/World Series of Poker reruns.
Fantasy Team O' the Week:
* With one game remaining, two teams tied on 59 points -- Colin Sebastian's Hargreaves' Hair and Ben Kopsa's Olympique Mayonnais. Each had Wayne Rooney as a captain for 26 points.
Miscellany:
* Titus Bramble must have secretly killed somebody. He actually played pretty good Saturday against Manchester United, even diving to block a point-blank shot by Darren Fletcher.
Of course, he'll never shake his calamity reputation in England, unless by some stroke of fate he kicked the winning-penalty in next year's World Cup Final ... and even then, he'd still be a punchline.
* Clint Dempsey was a straight-up forward for Fulham vs. Chelsea. It'll probably stay that way with Andy Johnson out injured. Wonder if it open the door one last time for Eddie Johnson to do something at Craven Cottage.
* As for Chelsea? Simply dominated Fulham without having to break a sweat.
* If I had a bunch of money laying around, I'd consider lodging a bid at West Ham United. Great history, great/loyal fans and a decent enough stadium inside the English capital. You could do worse.
* Note to FSC, I know there's a relationship with DirecTV, but about eight commercials of LL Cool J yelling, "Philip Rivers" is enough for one weekend.
* Intrigued to see if Aston Villa is going to go to Anfield and show some guts this afternoon. I've said this a couple times, but this team is teetering more than we think. Losing Gareth Barry as a player hurts, but he can be replaced. The leadership void on and off the field left by him and the retired Martin Laursen? These are things that must be considered. I don't see Villa having too much fun any more.
One other thing:
* Not sure if this will be a recurring item or too Peter King-y, but definitely go see "Inglourious Basterds." Yeah, it's long and dense. And yeah, there's a King James Bible amount of on-screen reading. Whatever. It's a movie you only need to see once. It's hard to imagine a more engrossing 220 minutes.
I left the theater on the fence, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. Yeah, it was full of dialogue and would have been more suited for a August 1969 release than an August 2009 release. Insignificant, Quentin Tarantino's got it.
Two things to consider: 1) Christoph Walz is, in fact, the balls in the movie. (That's a bingo!) 2) any time a film uses a snuff box, I'm sold.
Enjoy Anfield this afternoon.
And I'll have a glass of milk, please.
Labels: david moyes, everton, fox soccer channel, joleon lescott, Premier League, Premier League on ESPN, Soccer, Wayne Rooney
Nice recap, as always. This seems likely to be a long comment. I apologize and feel free to skip ahead. The 'imported beer triumvirate of doom' is a great call. Arsenal hates beer!
I am not as worried about the CREAM aspect of the Premier League as you. Or at least not worried that it is significantly different now, than in the last decade or so. Obviously, the top four is rolling around in their Champions League money and that makes it hard for anyone else to break into the club. But I think one of the traditional top four *might* be in for some kind of financial turmoil due to bad interest rates or unsold condos - and that (rather than a rising challenger from below) could be the trigger for reshuffling the deck at the top.
Everton was a thin squad last year that Moyes seemed to squeeze every ounce out of. How has the money situation going into this season changed anything in the league table? So far, it hasn't - the Manclacticos were tenth last year. I think everybody needs to chill out regarding City. Seriously. They have done NOTHING so far with their new uber-squad. Maybe they will, maybe they won't - but acting like spending cash in the way they have is the same as success in the league table is foolish. If City wants to keep and/or draw in new Euro-talent next summer they MUST make the Champions League. Finishing fifth and getting a Europa League spot is *not* going to get Maicon to City from Inter or lure Ribery out of Bayern (though it seems like Frank will be eager to flee that fustercluck). City has made a huge gamble and I think it might all fall apart if they don't get the needed results immediately. Hughes doesn't have several seasons to 'build momentum' and if City doesn't start winning trophies right quick, they will become like one of those Qatari teams packed with head-case has-beens who must be paid huge wages to come to a god-forsaken hinterland where there is nothing worth winning. City couldn't lure Kaka so they settled for Adebayor. See what I'm saying?
Lecott leaving Everton could be a disaster for the Toffees if they don't have someone else lined up to come in in central defense (stay away from Hangeland). Moyes *should* have known weeks ago that this was how it was going to end, and a smart manager would have had a replacement at the ready as he milked the buyer for maximum cash. However, if Moyes cannot get another back in there because he wasn't looking around because he truly believed that Mr. Fine Young Cannibal would never leave - then Everton are screwed. Spurs messing around with Berbatov leaving last summer seems similar in that the Tottenham negotiators were focused on maximizing the price they got for the Continental, but when their juicy deal finally went through (YAY!) they were left with zero time to actually spend all the dough they had raked in before the transfer window closed (oops).
re: Megson leaving Bolton. Maybe he should go, I can't say that I follow the team that closely - but this dissatisfaction with middling success seems odd coming from Bolton. Are the local fans really THAT convinced they should be playing Barça style run and gun? Does Megson piss every newspaper writer off? He seems to get bad press, while Megson does (at least in my eyes) a reasonable job with what he has to work with at f^%&ing BOLTON! Running Megson out for someone else feels like a smaller version of Newcastle ditching Robson after they came in 'only' fourth because the delusional fan-base thought they deserved better. Ask a Geordie how THAT worked out.
Jozy was positively Drogbesque (in the good way) at times on Saturday. The way he totally chumpatized Zat Knight on that one turn shows me he can hang in the EPL with no problems. Now lets just hope that Phil Brown has the good sense to turn him loose on a weekly basis.
As far as the Big 4 goes, I still think we might be nudging towards a Big 6 situation. Villa and Everton are slipping away, but City has their unlimited money, and Spurs have a really, really deep squad at this point(seriously, look at who they have on the bench compared to say, Liverpool or Man U), and no sign of the money-spigot being turned off for them either. If finances and the inability to attract foreign players preclude Liverpool or Arsenal from strengthening over the next couple of years, you could see some convergence going on there. Maybe even this year if Rooney or Gerrard/Torres miss significant time, since Pool and Man U are really vulnerable if they lose their stars right now. It's not likely, but certainly more possible than in the past several years.
This season has me a lot more excited because of the prospect that Tottenham or Man City could shake up the Big 4. The Big 4 are boring to the neutral fan. I hate them all and couldn't care less who takes the title, but the prospect that one of those massive fan bases could be wallowing in self-pity and loathing for an entire season with no champions league football gets me pumped up.
Everyone in the media has been saying that the Premier got raided this summer and all the best have moved to Spain. Well, I know that the talent amongst the Big 4 is as good as it was last year, maybe better with an improved Arsenal and Chelsea, but now we have 2 lurking contenders in Man City and Tottenham who are excellent too. It's a really strong group of 6 clubs. You feel bad for Aston Villa and Everton but I think deep down we all knew they were never going to crack the top 4, Villa had their chance last year and the loss of Laursen killed it and Everton peaks at 5th place.
For 30f on Man City:
You are right they've done nothing special yet. They beat 2 bad teams, but the scorelines were unflattering. City could've won 7-0 against Wolves but they couldn't finish worth a damn. We'll get to see how real City and Tottenham are in 2 weeks when City gets Arsenal and Tottenham gets Man Utd.
J - It won't ever be a big 6 in the EPL unless Uefa offers six spots in the Champions League. The number of spots that the English teams get (4) is the cause of 'the big four.' I don't disagree that Tot and City might be closer to the 4th place team this season, but (at least IMO) that gap exists because the CL money is so much greater than what the Europa League squads in fifth sixth (and 7th?) get. It seems (though I am not sure) that in England, the list of teams that receive the huge CL money is more static than in other big leagues, thus making their dominant status more carved in stone that the 'big four' in Spain or the big three in Germany. If Tottenham somehow replaces a debt ravaged Liverpool in the top four (just for example) it would be really, really hard for anyone to then dis-lodge Spurs - since the money advantage and the ability to draw the best players from foreign leagues would at White Hart Lane and NOT Anfield.
Shane - You are right that the static big 4 is boring. I too, wish that things would change up - however inertia and the system structure is invested in change coming slowly, if at all.
I am not ready to say that City and Spurs are 'excellent.' They sure look good, but as the Wolf says, "Well, let's not start sucking each other's dicks quite yet."
I am especially skeptical of City's season long chances. The amount of money they spent is offered up like the $$$ are proof of future success. Tevez is a good player, but the fact that he cost City 25mil does NOT mean he is 'that good' it is just how much they paid. If I wildly overpay for a Honda Accord that doesn't make it a Porsche. Also, the money spent on Santa Cruz might as well have been used to light cigars, it will have zero bearing on the league. City is going have a bad stretch and ego problems will emerge - both for the players and for the owners that look at the amount they have spent and will expect instant results. Hughes is an okay manager, but 'gutty Blackburn' is more his kind of team than this squad full of superstars all making 10x more than their manager.
the one thing I'll throw into the City debate is this...as was proven at Arsenal, Emmanuel Adebayor owned OWNED (emphasis) the crap teams. Feasted on them.
So in that regard, let's see how they play against a good team, or at least somebody better than Wolves or Blackburn -- which should have at least drawn them on opening weekend.
One thing to consider, too, is that I guess there has to be some trickle down in terms of players. I don't see Manchester City fielding two teams in the Premiership too, so it'll be hard to monopolize all the marquee talent.
I'm rambling, so I'll just hit post now.
Anfield in HD...with Jon Champion? My head is about to explode.
J - It won't ever be a big 6 in the EPL unless Uefa offers six spots in the Champions League. The number of spots that the English teams get (4) is the cause of 'the big four.'
I'm not really so sure of that. It's definitely a major contributor, but it doesn't necessarily work that way in Spain or Germany, for example, so I don't think the Champions League money is the final determining factor. It's more denying the CL money to the smaller clubs for whom it is much more crucial since they don't have the same margin for error. 3 of the Big 4 are storied clubs with long histories of success that they have been able to leverage into a global audience and huge bucks. Even if Liverpool or Arsenal had a temporary financial hiccup and fell into Villa/Everton land for a couple of years, I don't really think they would stay there permanently, though I guess a Leeds-like spiral is conceivable if unlikely. Probably wouldn't happen though, because the brand they have built is just too valuable and someone would buy them and make them whole. The 4th, Chelsea, have essentially bought their way there Citeh-style, but are probably established enough globally now that they won't go away either, at least until Roman gets bored and sells them to someone less loaded.
Citeh now have enough money that Champions League cash doesn't mean anything to them, at least in the next 5-10 years or so. Champions League prestige does though, and they need to make it at least every 2-3 years to be able to sign the kinds of world class players they need to contend for the top 4 spots. Spurs, I am not so sure of. I don't know what their ownership or debt situation is, but they seem to always have cash to splash, and insofar as 'Pool and Arse have less, they might be able to buy their way to rough parity over time, though it's definitely riskier for them than for Citeh. I don't see why those 6 clubs, with their resources, couldn't rotate in and out of the Champions League spots over time. However, if any one of them missed more than 2 years in a row, they'd probably be in pretty big trouble. It would depend on which one it was though. If it was any of Arse / Pool / Man U, their brand and global audience would keep them in the mix. And Chelsea and Citeh would have the financial reserves to sustain things fairly indefinitely, provided the ownership wants to. Spurs are probably the only one for whom missing the CL for consecutive years would make it much harder to get back to that level, and for them maybe it's either make the jump to elite status or fall back to the pack. So we could have either a Big 5 or Big 6, but I think the old Big 4 deadlock has likely already been broken, both by the Citeh incursion and the combination of the financial collapse and the unsustainable debt levels of the existing Big 4.